REVIEW—LIZA: A TRULY TERRIFIC ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY (2024)

"I am a part of all that I have met," poet Alfred Tennyson wrote In “Ulysses”, a poem in blank verse that served as a dramatic monologue detailing the Greek hero's travels, encounters, and escapades, through which Ulysses was exposed to many different types of people and ways of living. By having Ulysses say this, Tennyson offered his view that humans are shaped by a combination of all life's experiences. 

It could easily be something Liza Minnelli would say. The philosophy that a person is shaped by others in their life is the documentary structure of Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (2024), written and directed by Bruce David Klein. Liza’s influences were iconic and celebrated, beginning with her parentage (Judy Garland, her mother; Vincent Minnelli, her father) and continuing on through a family of friends and mentors into the ‘70s when all she became influenced her fans to become themselves. 

I’m the first to admit that you either love Liza Minnelli or you don’t; you’re a fan or you’re not. I was 18 years old when Cabaret (1972) came to my local moviehouse in Twin Falls, Idaho. I was living in an upstairs apartment that I had painted bright yellow and gnashing at the bit to get out of Twin to go find my life somewhere else. Liza’s Oscar®-winning performance as Sally Bowles dazzled and motivated me. I saw Cabaret eight times in as many nights. It fueled my eventual release from Idaho and catapulted me into the urban lifestyle that characterized my adulthood. 

San Francisco became my home and it was there that I was fortunate enough to see Liza several times in concert, including the preview performance of “Shine It On” (eventually “The Act” on Broadway). Directed by Martin Scorsese with original music by John Kander and Fred Ebb, “Shine It On / The Act” suffered from a lousy script. The disappointment in the audience was palpable; the tepid applause painful. Then the curtain opened, Liza walked out, admitted to the play’s faults, and asked if she couldn’t compensate by singing for us. The crowd, as they say, went wild. Myself included. To be in the presence of such a consummate entertainer was rapturous. So, yes, you either love Liza Minnelli or you don’t; you’re either a fan or you’re not. I am unabashedly a loving fan. 

So I started with Cabaret, explored earlier projects (The Sterile Cuckoo, Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon), subsequent projects (Liza With A Z, New York, New York, Arthur, Stepping Out), and learned more about her life; all of which is affectionately surveyed in Klein’s filmic tribute. 

“Being Judy Garland’s daughter is not a lot of laughs,” Liza once stated. Contrary to the stereotypical presumption that all gay men were “friends of Dorothy”, I knew nothing of Judy Garland until many years later when I caught a telecast of A Star Is Born and connected the dots: not only why gay men iconicized Garland, but for me the more sobering insight that Liza’s protective relationship with her mother was much like my own. We both played the role of child-as-parent, suffering from the adage that childhood cannot wait for the parent to grow up. Escaping the weight of that loving duty, surviving her mother’s death, and negotiating an identity separate from Garland required that Liza embark on her own odyssey. 

Her father Vincent Minnelli helped in that regard. Vincent Minnelli instilled a sense of perfectionism in Liza. “Emphasize what you think is good,” he said, “what you don’t like, change it.” As she was preparing for the role of Sally Bowles, Minnelli introduced Liza to silent era icons Lya Diputti and Louise Brooks, which helped Liza create the look of Sally Bowles; a look which Liza adopted thereafter. 

Also helping in the creation of Sally Bowles, Christina Smith—a make-up artist who befriended Liza—took advantage of her large eyes and exaggerated her eyelashes. As her celebrity increased, Liza remained loyal to Smith, championed her work, and helped her become one of the first female make-up artists in Hollywood without union credentials. 

Kay Thompson took over when Garland died, becoming Liza’s mother surrogate and mentor. It was Kay who advised Liza not to go around with dull people or people she didn’t like. “Even if you’re curious,” Kay cautioned, “don’t do it.” Her full-blown personality—which Liza emulated—made Liza the superstar possible. 

French singer and songwriter Charles Aznavour was next. Aznavour changed Liza’s life by teaching her how to act out the emotion of a song. They were “more than friends, less than lovers.” He recognized that—like many young performers—Liza was imitating others and had not yet found her voice. He showed her how to incorporate the grittiness of life into her interpretation of a song, to make a song her own by singing it close to her heart, making it intimate and not needing to make every song a national anthem (as Frank Sinatra once complained to Mia Farrow, Liza’s friend since their teenage years). 

Despite Sinatra’s valid critique, I nonetheless have always enjoyed when an entertainer can belt out a song. Sometimes it’s essential to a song’s emotional authenticity; its drama. Not everyone agrees, I know, as I learned when I was at Tower Records in North Beach asking for what was then Liza’s latest album “At Carnegie Hall” (1987). The guy at the counter shouted out to a co-worker, “Hey, do we have the new album by the screaming lady?!!” 

Another quality Liza picked up from her father was an appreciation for choreography. She loved to dance and her association with choreographer Bob Fosse had a strong influence. Like her father, Fosse was a perfectionist, and precise. He brought discipline and focus to her dancing. 

But it was musical theater lyricist Fred Ebb who truly invented Liza. He was her big brother. According to Michael Feinstein—one of the documentary’s main talking heads—Liza was Fred Ebb’s alter-ego. As much as Kay Thompson instilled in Liza the very showmanship that she was unable to achieve for herself, Ebb wanted to be Liza. He channeled his talent through her’s. He began shaping her identity by steering her away from talking about her mother, explaining that the focus would shift to her. It was while Ebb and John Kander were writing the songs for “Flora the Red Menace” that they became godfathers to Liza’s career, recognizing that only she could play Flora, for which she earned a Tony Award for Best Actress in a musical. “She had the thing you can’t teach,” Kander opined, “even though she had a lot to learn.” 

With Bob Fosse, Fred Ebb produced the television concert Liza With A Z (1972). Fosse directed and choreographed the concert and Kander and Ebb wrote and arranged the music, including the titular tune that definitively set Liza’s identity in song and the clever “Ring Them Bells” (whose lyrics provided the title to Klein’s documentary). The television concert won Liza an Emmy and was likewise notable for her costumes, designed by Halston, to whom Liza had been introduced through Kay Thompson. She and Halston became intimate friends. It was Halston who gave Liza her signature red sequin look; a glittering compensation for her perspiring on stage. “Know yourself,” Halston encouraged socratically. “Know what suits your purposes.” Liza had the eye; she knew what looked good; but, Halston was the one that could make her look good. He designed for her body, which gave her confidence.

  

In my late twenties I had the good fortune of befriending Peter Allen when he began appearing in clubs in San Francisco. I didn’t know anything about his marriage to Liza Minnelli until years later; but, he referenced her in his song “Tenterfield Saddler” where he described himself as having been all around the world living in no special place but “marrying a girl with an interesting face.” Though Allen’s bisexuality dissolved their marriage, Mia Farrow commented that—of all of Liza’s husbands—she was happiest with him. Along with Feinstein, Farrow’s friendship with Liza contributes some of the film’s primary commentary. Other talking heads include Chita Rivera, George Hamilton, Ben Vereen, Joel Grey, Darren Criss, and her sister Lorna Luft. 

I could go on and on with anecdote after anecdote about Liza, but suffice it to say that Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story will satisfy and fill in the gaps. If each person’s life is an odyssey that exposes them to individuals who influence them, and aware that nowadays there are more stars than you can shake a stick at, when I was young during the incredibly formative 1970s, there were only a few true superstars, Liza being one of them. Her influence upon me has been indelible. I may not have met her in person but I have seen her in person. I’ve applauded at concerts and even applauded with a movie audience when she sang “And the World Goes ‘Round” when New York, New York screened in San Francisco. It was as if she was there, and we couldn’t help praising the woman on screen. Rumor has it that she was actually in the audience incognito, and delighted by our response. 

Curiously absent from the documentary is Liza’s association with the Pet Shop Boys for one of my favorite albums of hers: "Results" (1989). Later that year at the Grammys, she sang Stephen Sondheim’s “Losing My Mind” (which had been included on "Results") before receiving a Grammy Legend Award, thus making her one of only sixteen artists to receive a Tony, an Academy Award, an Emmy and a Grammy. 

Among the many cameos she made later in her career, my favorite was from the television series Smash when she sang “A Love Letter From the Times”. 

  

Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story runs through Friday, March 7, 2025 at the Roxie in San Francisco, California and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California. Unfortunately, as far as I’m aware, there are no scheduled screenings in Boise, Idaho.